This exhibition is devoted to the priest, collector, antiquarian and amateur artist Edward Thomas Daniell (1804-1842), a talented watercolour painter and etcher. The works on display cover his entire artistic career, taking the visitor on Daniell’s journey from Norfolk to Nubia and beyond.

The son of a former Attorney-General of Dominica, Daniell was born in London but moved to St Giles Street in Norwich with his mother after his father’s early death. He was educated at the Norwich Grammar School where John Crome (1768-1821) was drawing master. By the early 1820s he was already collecting works of art and in 1823 he went on a sketching holiday in Norfolk with the artist Joseph Stannard (1797-1830), who later taught him to etch.

Daniell read classics at Balliol College, Oxford, but during the vacations he spent time in London taking painting lessons from the artist John Linnell (1792-1882). He graduated from Oxford with a BA in 1828 and MA in 1831. In 1829-30 he spent 18 months on a tour of continental Europe, travelling as far as southern Italy via France, Germany and Switzerland. Daniell was ordained deacon at Norwich Cathedral in 1832. In the early 1830s he served as curate in the village of Banham, Norfolk, and continued to practise art, producing finely-observed drawings and etchings of local subjects and landscapes. During 1832 Daniell exhibited views of Italy and Switzerland with the Norwich Society of Artists. He also exhibited both at the Royal Academy in 1838 and 1839 and the British Institution in 1836, 1838 and 1839.